So this is our second year of using Axtime and while we had a couple of teething issues, they were minor and Chris was very helpful. We ran it for the entire season and it made timing so much easier. We weren’t even using any of the wireless features

Then the logic board on our old Macbook Pro died before our last event of the season and we had to go back to Axware since that was our back up. It was terrible and reminded us of why we switched to Axtime in the first place.

This year we bought a brand new Macbook Pro to replace our old one. I had a couple of issues getting it to run as I am not a programmer at all but Chris spent an hour with me getting everything set up and working. As always he was great.

This is a dedicated computer that doesn’t do anything else except our timing, club related business or some random Internet surfing. We bought a router as well but couldn’t get the wireless results working. I asked some questions about that in another thread.

So for our first event 3 weeks ago Axtime ran perfectly. No timing issues at all.

But we had our second event of the season yesterday and everything just fell apart and I have no idea why. We didn’t even start Axtime in the 3 weeks since then so we made no changes to anything.

It started the night before with trying to create the second event and nothing appeared. We restarted it and tried creating the event again but this time two events appeared. The one that we tried to create before and the new one. We couldn’t figure out a way to delete one of them.

We started the system the next morning and while we’ve never been able to import from MS Reg due to some sort of error, we usually just import a .CSV file and it works just fine.

Yesterday, it wouldn’t even do that. In Chrome, I got a localhost refused to connect error. We tried several times and a couple of times it even said that it was imported successfully but nothing actually imported.

So this sucked but we figured we could just quickly type in their info as we checked them on or use member lookup for people who had come to our first event. We get about 70-80 cars per event with registration being open for at least an hour so entering them on the fly wouldn’t be a big deal.

So I decided to add the few club members that volunteer since I knew their cars, class and number to get started before the rush. I went to new registration and noticed that half of our PAX classes were missing. Only Street and Street Touring were showing. All of the classes were showing though. Even member lookup wouldn’t show their PAX class for SM or SP competitors.

I went into manage seasons and noticed that the PAX classes were buggy in there. I’d try adding SM and it would disappear or ask me if I’m sure I wanted to delete this driver. I’d also hit Add Class and the first bar that I’d need to type the PAX class into was missing.

At this point we realized that we’d have to use our Race America AC4 to record times and manually enter them into a spreadsheet to time. Axtime was just being too buggy and the worst part is we have no idea why.

I know Chris is one man (and a busy one at that) and he has built what is usually an excellent timing system but none of us that time for our club have a software or pogromming background so when faced with these errors we have no idea where to even start troubleshooting.

There also isn't nearly supporting documentation to go with it especially explaining what system is doing. Even the install guides assume a high degree of understanding but still don’t explain why it’s being done a certain way.

I tried setting up an event today and I’m still getting all the same issues I mentioned above. I have screenshots of all the issues we were having. We have no idea what we’re going to do going forward timing wise as Axtime really let us down when we needed it and after working perfectly 3 weeks earlier for our first event.

Yes, we restarted it multiple times. As for wiping the computer and reinstalling things, Chris had to actually install it for us so I don't think that is an option as I haven't heard from him since I sent him an email outlining the problems we've been having. Our next event in July 9th and right now our best option seems to be going back to our old computer and Axware, which sucks but I'm not tech savvy enough to be a beta tester for this software. I'm just annoyed we spent about $100 an event for the time we used it.

Bummer :(
I'm an IT pro, and while I'll usually recommend a Mac over a Windows PC for most things ... axtime is not one of them. It's much easier to install AND troubleshoot axtime on windows IMO. You need a pretty tech savvy linux/osx person to install/troubleshoot on a mac, You'll find way more people/volunteers with windows troubleshooting experience and the documentation is a little better on the windows side...though it too is lacking.
Costo and Sams have really cheap windows laptops FWIW. I'm actually using axtime on a 8yr old windows7 laptop :-)
Have you tried calling Chris yet? He might respond quicker that way vs email.

The Dell ATG series is made for being outdoors. The displays are brilliant, legible even in the sun, and the chassis is rugged. You can pick them up used for $200-$300 all day long. This model has plenty of horsepower to host AXTI.me.

UNFORTUNATELY, I only found out about them after I bought the semi-crappy touchscreen HP laptop that is our main hosting machine. We have 3 previous model Dell ATGs and those are the ones everybody goes to for staff tasks.

I would follow Jason's advice and give a Windows machine a try, you should have better luck! I can also vouch for the Dell ATG series and is exactly what our club uses, the screen being viewable in direct sunlight alone is worth every penny.

We have an older Windows machine that runs Axware which we've gone back to using. I appreciate everyone's suggestion and certainly didn't expect to require an OS X expert to run this software. Every other piece of software built for OS X that I run seems to work without one. I'm not messing with trying to get ahold of Chris to get the software running on a Windows machine.

The install on a windows machine is way easier and doesn't require pinging Chris. Download, install, roll on.
I support both mac and windows machines at work. I prefer macs until there's an issue. Troubleshooting an OSX issue is often way more difficult than windows IME :)